Podcasts · The David McWilliams Podcast
Petty Lines in the Sand
· 37 min · S2025 E99
Episode Petty Lines in the Sand
We’re diving into the economics of borders, the lines we pretend are ancient but were mostly scratched into the earth by soldiers, surveyors and empire-builders with rulers. From Ukraine’s shifting frontlines to Dublin’s Herzog Park, to Northern Ireland’s uneasy edges, we trace how geography becomes politics. Then we go back to the original culprit: William Petty, Cromwell’s cartographer, the man who mapped Ireland in 13 months and turned land into an asset class. His Down Survey redrew Ireland and created the blueprint for colonialism, capitalism and the straight-line borders that still ignite conflict from Central Asia to the Middle East. We follow the rulers, the rebellions, the dispossession and the economics behind every “line in the sand.”
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